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George Benson recounts “criminal” encounter with Beatles
As The Beatles take center stage in the music world this week with the much-anticipated reissue of their albums, it’s easy to forget that the Fab Four were not exactly adored by large swathes of the musical community back in the day. Jazz artists, especially, looked down on the noisy pop stars (or were more likely envious of their fame and fortune).
“It used to be a crime for a jazz musician to even mention the word ‘Beatles,’” jazz guitarist George Benson recalled on Thursday, during a promotion for his new album at the Grammy Museum in downtown Los Angeles.
“There was such a divide between rock music and jazz music … We just didn’t discuss anything like that.”
There were some notable crossover efforts, including Ella Fitzgerald with her versions of “Can’t Buy Me Love” and “Got To Get You Into My Life.”
“But among the instrumentalists, it was not possible,” said Benson, who was forced to keep his admiration for The Beatles a secret. ”I liked The Beatles. It just was against the law,” he said.
But within weeks of the 1969 release of The Beatles album “Abbey Road,” Benson found himself in the studio, at the best of his label boss, doing a jazz version of the album with a chamber orchestra. ”The Other Side of Abbey Road,” complete with a cover that showed Benson carrying his guitar across the road, scrambled the order of the tunes, recasting most of them in medley form. He also sang on the album for the last time until his smash 1976 Warner Bros. label debut “Breezin.’”
“It took me to a place I had never been before,” he said of the “Abbey Road” sessions, singing the first line of “Golden Slumbers” for good measure.
Ain’t no spotlight in the works for soul icon Bill Withers
If you never saw Bill Withers perform during his heyday in the 1970s, you’re out of luck. The 70-year-old singer/songwriter of such soul standards as “Lean on Me” and “Ain’t No Sunshine” says he has no desire to mount a late-era comeback because he gets more applause now than when he was on stage.
“When I was actually out there, I played small places, I never drew that many people, I didn’t get any applause,” he said during a chat this week with a few journalists. “The kind of stuff that I did, actually, it took about 30 years for it to sink in. But when I was current, I wasn’t that big a deal. So I learned my lesson. If I stay at home, things go well for me. I don’t want to show up and screw it up.”
Withers and his statuesque singer/songwriter daughter Kori were attending a book party in downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday for Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, and he indeed garnered a lot of applause and adoration. Maybe he has a point. So what does he do all day? “I’m having fun, working with my daughter,” he said. “I’m just kinda like the band-dad. I let ‘em use my house, and clean up after ‘em sometimes, and speak ill of ‘em when they’re gone.”
Another reason why Withers does not miss the spotlight is that he was late getting to it in the first place. He worked for nine years as an aircraft mechanic in the U.S. Navy, and spent the second half of the 1960s struggling to land a record deal in Los Angeles. He finally released his first album in ’71, “Just As I Am,” and won a songwriting Grammy for the hit single “Ain’t No Sunshine.”
He released his ninth and final album in 1985. His MBA-trained wife administers his lucrative catalog. “You’ve got to keep her busy, or she’s a pain in the butt,” he said.
Some other bons mots:
HIS INFLUENCES: “My favorite early writings were clever people like Chuck Berry and Leiber & Stoller … It had some literary value in that it didn’t lean on the cliches. They were authentic things. They were for real.”
The Real Deal is That..
Without white folks oppressing black folks ie slavery..there would be no blues… and without black folks there would be no Elvis… Think about that..
George Benson, the greatest jazz guitarist, will be playing at Bergen PAC in Englewood, NJ on April 10, 2010. You can bid for a meeting with him after the concert and receive a signed Ibanez guitar from him. For more information, visit http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie wItem&item=220507268890&ssPageName=ADME: L:LCA:US:1123.